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Finland and the rise of populism, or where do all these stupid people come from?.
Less than two weeks ago we had parliamentary elections in Finland and the surprising result was that a previously marginal party (~5% share) of nationalistic socialists rose to become the third biggest party in a virtual tie of ~20% shares. This article in the Helsinki Times is a very good write up for those who are interested.
Comparisons to the Tea Party movement spring to mind even though there are plenty of material differences in the philosophy, political agendas, and electoral system. The one overwhelming common denominator seems to be that these people are if not stupid, then short sighted, small minded, and extremely irrational.
I have been party to the rise of anti-scientific sentiment in society for some time now and this is, in my view, an extension of that same mindset into politics, specifically fiscal policy and foreign affairs.
So, where is this coming from?
Comparisons to the Tea Party movement spring to mind even though there are plenty of material differences in the philosophy, political agendas, and electoral system. The one overwhelming common denominator seems to be that these people are if not stupid, then short sighted, small minded, and extremely irrational.
I have been party to the rise of anti-scientific sentiment in society for some time now and this is, in my view, an extension of that same mindset into politics, specifically fiscal policy and foreign affairs.
So, where is this coming from?
Comments
Oddly enough, I was just thinking along these lines literally less than a minute ago when I watched this video of Lawrence Lessig's presentation at CERN.
I highly doubt it is the primary reason for the rise of anti-intellectualism, but it did make me think. Real scientific literature is largely not on the web. It's all locked up behind journals and paywalls. So far there haven't been any people with access through these paywalls who are willing to steal all these papers and illegally put them on bittorrent or whatever. As a result, when you search for anything scientific on Google you will not get a scientific paper as a result. Instead, you will only get blogs, woo, mainstream media, etc. Would having open access to all scientific papers online effectively Google bomb all the woo sites into oblivion? Would that reduce the amount of people believing in woo? Obviously most people wouldn't comprehend the papers if they even tried to read them, but still.
I think one thing I can say for sure is that one major contributing factor is the unwillingness or inability of most scientists to contribute time or resources into taking things public. Wingnuts have all the time in the world to go on TV or write blog posts about homeopathy. Doctors and scientists are busy doing work. But maybe if they took turns actually trying to fight the wingnuts we would gain some ground instead of just ignoring them and letting them win.
Quiet resistance to outside ideas has kind of been the norm in Scandinavia, hasn't it? It's not a culture that absolutely refuses to change, but it's something they fight.
That might explain how it's come to Finland, but I think the bigger question is why we're seeing this as a growing global trend. Personally, I blame the Internet. More people than ever are being exposed to a broader range of ideas than has ever happened in the past. It is the norm to resist new ideas and change slowly. When you assail people with an avalanche of new ideas, I think it follows logically that a good chunk will take a fiercely oppositional stance.
In other words, people's tiny little worlds are being threatened by lots of scary new ideas and rapid social change, changes that are coming faster than they've ever seen. The most immediate solution is to defend their little slice of the world as hard as they can.
What we really need is education in logic in school. You teach people about all the sort of bullshit people will try to feed them in their life and how to sort through it in elementary school, and the woo problem will go away damn fast. Unfortunately, that's not a practical solution because of how incredibly controversial a class like that would be, so a more practical solution would be to have a scientific advocate agency or something, people who are trained enough to understand science while also being taught public speaking and debate and other communication skills. People like that could present the facts correctly while still dominating the conversation with woo-pushers on TV debates, editorials, and so forth. These people could also function as expert witnesses in court who could clarify scientific concepts for laymen much better than scientists themselves. However, public funding for scientific causes is tight enough as it is, it'd be difficult to keep an agency like that operating.
Here's what I want to see: a strong public health education curriculum. Use that as the vehicle to teach critical thinking skills. Teach people how vaccines work, and how medical research works, and stuff like that. Teach them what it actually means for something to be not significantly different than a placebo. Ahahahahahahaha. Someone is naively optimistic.
It will not go away "damn fast," because peddlers of woo know a lot about psychology and the ease with which people can be emotionally manipulated into believing ridiculous things. The problem is that many many woo peddlers are smart scientists who use their knowledge for nefarious purposes. The layman doesn't stand a chance.
The worst part of woo is that regular people can't tell it's woo. It's not the hardcore homeopaths that keep it going, it's the larger number of clueless people who just don't know better and can't tell that it's not real medicine.
Now the person who believes the woo, has been vaccinated against logic. They have been told that all areas that normally they would trust are in on the conspiracy and they should only trust these fringe sources. Independent review is rare and far between and I'm sure they are just in on the conspiracy to hide this product....
Think about how many fucking nerds out there think it's a good idea to return to the gold standard.
In my opinion, there are many benefits to allowing immigrants into a country. They introduce new food (I love me some kathi rolls and bahn mi for lunch!), new customs (thank you, Koreans, for spa castle!), and provide variety to a society. Stuff is easier when everyone is the same, but it is certainly more interesting when people are different. I think it is more challenging when there are many languages and cultural behaviors in the same space, but as long as there is some sort of basic communication people can use the benefits far outweigh the consequences. There needs to be effort both ways. Immigrants should not expect the country to fundamentally change for them, and should make an effort to engage in the society and assimilate linguistically and behaviorally to some extent. That's not to say that they have to give up their original language, but should be at the least bilingual to some degree. When I am in Japan, I never deny my culture, but I want to help everything go smoothly. I will cook carroway stew and read books in English, but I will also not wear my shoes indoors or be loud.
edit: Also, those who fear "Sharia law" and other strict moral conservatism among the immigrants, I think when a group of people enter a society that is more free, more people go from the conservative to freedom than the other way around. In other words, more strict cultures will often relax over time, but very few times will you see the host culture becoming more strict.